A Game with Only One
by Toramo
Summary: A one-shot challenge with the prompt Albus x Gellert. They were children then, in a time when they were only Albus and Gellert, only boys, being only boys. When all that mattered were games and play and merry making, when all they had was each other and that was all they needed. But that time had passed , and Albus would leave with the spring.


A challenge in which my friend gives me any pairing in any fandom and I try to write a fanfic of it. She choose Albus x Gellert, and she told me I should publish it, so here it is.

Warning: If you're really picky about whether or not a story will fit within the canon you should probably not read this as I have never read the hp books and cant guarantee anything. This is SLASH, as in a boy x boy story, if this bothers you than don't read it. Both are kids during the time this story takes place, but don't worry it not explicit at all and its mostly just fluff. I will understand if you are uncomfortable with that but I am warning you before hand.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

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The small blond boy crouched, small, scraped knobby knees drawn up to a narrow chest, silently in the shadow of the picnic table he was huddled under. The soggy earth dampening the seat off his pants where it rested against the mud. Small hands with large knuckles intertwined with each other, and a lip caught in-between teeth, chewed quickly in contemplation. Large clear eyes, with a sharpness that only children possessed, darted, checking each shadow, searching. Gellert had been hiding for nearly fifteen minutes, but his heart rate had not slowed, and it seemed to jump at the slightest sound. His mind spinning with incoherent thoughts, a white noise that rattle in his brain and buzzed his limbs, and an instinct that screamed at him to run, to escape, but he pushed it down. He was still hidden, if he ran he might give away his location to whoever was watching, and Gellert was no fool to think those fifteen minutes was enough for them to give up.

His neck was crinkled at an odd angle, he had grown taller this year, two extra centimetres proudly marked in red pen on the doorjamb of his room in his ramshackle home in the suburbs of their town, and he could no longer fit comfortably under the table. He had to bend his head so it didn't touch the disgusting bottom covered with a speckling of chewed gum in a myriad of colours from pink strawberries to blue raspberry, as if such a thing existed, and candy apple green, like constellation of stars replacing the actual sky, that hung much higher above his head that the worm eaten wood of the table. Maybe one day he would grow tall enough to have the tips of his hair graze that clouds but not yet, but Gellert was sure he had enough time; he was only seven after all.

As he thought about bubble gum clouds and boys as tall as the sky, he loosened, his feet already asleep shifted and he rolled his stiff shoulders. Working out the knots, he thinks that they would look like whorls in wood, hard and irregular like spots of rot or the pictures of planets he saw in the books on the top shelf of his father's library, as if the planets have eyes. It almost made them look like faces, like giant heads floating in space, somehow that thought filled him with an inexplicable joy, and felt some of the hollowness in his stomach ease.

The joy only manifested as a small smile, but it was one that rarely graced the morose child's face, it almost made him look this age. "What are you thinking about" with a squawk Gellert leaped up, banged his head on the bottom of the table, pulled down and left a few strands of his fair stuck in the stale gum, before losing his balance on his numb legs and tumbling forward, and sprawled in the grass. The sun of the late summer sun made his eyes hurt. He didn't even stop to think, he scrambled onto his jelly legs and started to run, trying to put as much distance between him and the disembodied voice as he could. But he had scarcely mad two steps when a large warm body bundled him from behind, knocking him down. Knees bumped and elbows jabbed as Gellert struggled to escape, but the other person was bigger, heavier and stronger. The fight was over before it started, with Gellert pinned, two large warm hands held his arms above his head, and a pair of long clottish legs wrapped around his torso, pinning his legs. Gellert knew it was over, but he still struggled for a couple of moments, the other person just waited for him to give up, they had done this before, and he just sat back and waited for his quarry to tire while he looked on. Eventually Gellert gave up, his legs were completely numb and his arms were sore from their awkward position held over his head, with dread he looked up to the triumphant face of his captor.

The smile that was on Albus' face was almost as bright as the sun above them, shining through his auburn hair and lighting it like flames, his smile was missing several teeth and Gellert could see his pink tongue through the gaps. There was a smudge of dirt under one cheek bone and his nose and cheeks were ruddy from sunburn but in that moment no one could look more brilliant. But Gellert only scowled, "You peeked didn't you! No way could you've found me" but they both knew that any complaints from now on were only sour grapes, but they both also knew that Gellert would argue until he was blue in the face before he submitted to the older boy.

Albus only laughed his chortle already deeper and throatier than Gellert's, even though in the future he would know that it was impossible. Boys went into puberty much later in their lives, later then even girls, but even with less than three years over Gellert, Albus somehow seemed so much bigger and older then him, even if he acted as if he was much younger than he was. Looking back down at his captured friend, blue eyes twinkling behind ginger lashes, he said "well it was you who choose hide n' seek, so you lost fair and square," Gellert only scowled harder, if such a thing was possible, his silvery eyes almost completely disappearing under pale, furrowed brows. While it was true that it had been Gellert that had chosen hide and seek, but only because he was certain that he could win. Albus was bigger and stronger than Gellert but that only meant it was harder for him to hide himself, he was also loud and lacked any skills in sneaking or deception, all of which were Gellert's specialties.

It should have been an easy win, but one thing that Albus _was_ good at was never giving up, and Gellert knew for sure that the other boy had checked under every one of the thirty seven picnic tables scattered around the park before he found him. Gellert didn't get him, he probably would have given up, and maybe even Albus, with his unshakable single tracked mind would have tired after the twentieth table, but Gellert knew why he was so determined to win, and Albus knew why Gellert was so desperate to hide and run. It was all because of that dumb bet. "Well," Albus said, not realizing that Gellert had zoned out halfway during his gloating session, or maybe just not caring, "where's my reward?" At the mention of a reward Gellert snapped to attention and gave a final desperate struggle and finding that Albus was still holding, seem to resign himself to whatever embarrassing thing Albus had in mind, and he had a pretty good idea what it was. Albus always asked for the same thing. Gellert scrunched his eyes up, willing the embarrassed flush to stay down, but he felt the telltale heat crawl up his neck and pool in the apple of his cheeks. There was no hiding anything with his fair skin, and he knew Albus knew as well.

He felt one of hands holding his wrist loosen, transferring both wrist to the other hand, and a moment later a large warm palm cupped his cheek. Stroking the flushed skin gently, callused fingers rough against the silky smooth skin of Gellert's face, unblemished in its youthfulness. Slowly Gellert opened his eyes, and looked into the face of the boy above him. Albus' blue eyes were only inches away from his own pale gaze, the heterochromatic irises seemingly unable to decide what colour they wanted to be, periwinkle or robin's egg or the hue of the sky, either at dawn or dusk or high noon or the final hour of night. Their faces were so close that their breaths mingled and Gellert was certain that Albus could feel his heart beat against his fingers, like a humming bird's wing beat, fluttering just beneath the surface of his paper thin skin.

Why Albus always chose this reward and why he always seemed so intense every time no matter how many times they had done it Gellert did not know, and would not for many years. All he knew was the feel of Albus' warm breath fan across his face, stirring the eyelashes on his lids, and the solid weight of the other boy as he sat astride him, pinning his on the sun soaked grass. He was dimly aware of the other hand holding his wrists loosen, releasing him, but all he could focus on was the look in Albus' eyes as he gripped his chin in an insistent hold and tilted Gellert's face upwards. Cupping the smaller face in his hands like a one would a rose bud or feather or anything else infinitely delicate and fragile.

Gellert felt his eyes slid close, as Albus bent his head, the loose strands of his ginger hair brushing across the sensitive skin of Gellert's closed lids. For a moment, in startling clarity Gellert felt the cool grass beneath him and the warm summer breeze stir the branches of the trees around them, heard the bird song and the harmony of their mutual breathing, and the warmth of the sun and Albus above him. The gentle hands and the trail Albus' nose made, trailing against his own, and for a moment all was still. The world around them continued, the birds still sung and the wind still blew their hair into disarray, but both boys were still as stones, the tension held until Albus spoke, seemingly breaking an eternity of silence. "Can I kiss you," it was hesitant and quiet and if they were not so close Gellert was sure he would have missed it. Instead of answering, for Gellert knew his voice would shake and couldn't stand that embarrassment, he only nodded, a tiny movement of his head, causing their lips to brush lightly across each other's. Albus let out a tiny gasp at the contact, his breath scraping roughly in his throat and across Gellert's parted lips, before leaning down and closing the remaining space before them, and pressing their lips together in a clumsy, sunshine scented kiss. They kissed the way children do, slow and softly, more curious and exploring then with any actual lust motivating their actions, the soft movement and careful nips of teeth more sensual than sexual.

They kissed the way children do, because they were children. Their thoughts and feelings and worlds still so simple, still innocent, and still dreaming of bubble gum clouds and of growing up to be taller than the sky. They were children then, in a time when they were only Albus and Gellert, only boys, being only boys. When all that mattered were games and play and merry making, when all they had was each other and that was all they needed. But that time had passed, and as spring warms to summer and leaves turned golden, as bright as Gellert's hair, and the skies darkened into night, the first snow sticks to the ground. Browning the grass, and wilting the flowers, sending the birds away to warmer lands, and Albus would leave with the spring.

They would not meet for many years. Gellert would not know of the questions behind Albus' kisses and Albus would not know of Gellert's answer. They would wonder and wait, still, while the world moved around them, it would spin and twirl and become more and more complicated. Tangled as unspooling thread, tying into knots and getting twisted around, and when they meet again they would no longer be just Albus and Gellert, they would be Dumbledore and Grindelwald. They were not boys anymore, not like they were before, the world was not as simple and innocent anymore. They were men, and they had to do what men had to do. War was war, and not even sunshine kisses could change that, not even chewing gum constellations, or childhood friendships and long held promises. No, they mattered not anymore, they once did, and they were all that did before, but no more.

The summer was over, and as the two no-longer boys stared at each other across a winter field, snow that covered the ground and grass and froze the leaves off the trees, each gripping their weapons, they knew that the prize of this game, this final game, would not be a kiss, it was their lives. But that felt more like a punishment then reward and they both wished, silently and never aloud, that it was summer again. But it was no longer summer, they were no longer boys, they were longer them, and as they raised their wands, they both knew that thing would never go back to the before. No matter what, one would lose today in that field, and it didn't matter how hard you tried, how hard you wished, covered your ears and closed your eyes. No matter how many times you counted to ten or thirty or a hundred, you would always be alone. With no one to tap you on your shoulder, no one to hide or seek or to kiss or just play with, because you can never play hide and seek with only one. One was just not enough. And would never be, even as boys they knew that.


End file.
